NEWS

Tunnel Planned to Link Helsinki, Tallinn

Reuters

HELSINKI — Helsinki and Tallinn have agreed to explore the possibility of linking the two capitals with a railway tunnel, which could end up the world’s longest, Helsinki’s mayor said Friday.

“We will start by applying for European Union financing for the study of the tunnel as well as an alternative railway link using ferries,” Mayor Jussi Pajunen said in an interview.

He said the Finnish and Estonian cities, which are about 80 kilometers apart on the shores of the Baltic Sea, aim to finish the initial feasibility study by the end of 2009, but that a tunnel would take more than 15 years to be completed. Earlier projections for the Helsinki-Tallinn tunnel link, which have widely been seen as unrealistic, have proposed two alternative routes, either 67 or 83 kilometers long.

Pajunen said the railway could later be connected with a line linking Helsinki with Warsaw and Berlin.

More stories by this section:

Police Seek Assassin of Politkovskaya | Residents Gather To Decry Planning Law | Transstroy Opens Company in St. Petersburg | In Brief | Instant Remedy for Deficit of Churches | Yabloko Leader Defies Party With Conference | Seven Women Leave Doomsday Cult’s Cave, 28 Still Barricaded In | President Tipped to Join Party

Or take part in the discussion below.